Returning to my writing (yay!)

After my long prior post about all the learning curves for reaching my next marketing plateau, I'm finally (almost) done and have picked up my latest book (Structures of Earth) and poured another 55000 words into it, just in the last month, and finished it. I've missed it badly!

I'm just starting book 2, Fragments of Lightning. I plan to complete the first three books before releasing any of them, and have the fourth one almost done. The first book, Structures of Earth, is a prequel that takes place five years before Fragments of Lightning, while the hero is still a teenager. I expect to write quite a few books in this series, each of them complete, like a detective series. The release(s) of the first few books should happen in the Spring of 2018, one right after another.

The remnants of my 2017 plans

Republishing all titles

I've finished cutting over to ActiveCampaign from MailChimp, and created suitable landing pages on my websites for newsletter signups from various locations.

That was the last thing I needed before updating all my titles (20 of them) with:

Misc. accumulated typo corrections

Longer next-book sample excerpts

Updated contact info

Updated newsletter info

UTM-wrapped links to other books & my websites for Google Analytics

Better TOC & metadata info inside the books

Larger cover images

Improved copyright pages

No one item is important enough, but with all of that I felt it was time to finally refresh all 20 titles, ebooks & print. I even moved from Ingram LSI to Spark for various discount coupon situations in the future as part of it. With any luck, I won't need to revise these particular titles ever again.

Associated with that was getting a copy of ONIXEDIT so that I could use the same distribution tools (ONIX) used by traditional publishers with their channel partners. It is of limited immediate use (only for my PublishDrive and StreetLib partners) but just going through the process was immensely educational about the metadata and channel communications issues that go on behind the scenes in the industry. I'm ready to start transmitting using ONIX to these partners very soon.

The newly branded website just for readers

KarenMyersAuthor is up, and so are its related Facebook & Twitter pages, but I haven't produced content yet, and so I haven't announced it. I need to start getting active there.

Facebook Ads

This is the last item on my 2017 agenda. I'll begin chewing away on this towards the end of the year.

New unforeseen complications

Imprints

In addition to my consulting gigs this year, I've just started adding new authors to Perkunas Press, and I've added three new imprints for them, since the books aren't in my primary genres. This is an exciting step for the publishing side of the business. Stay tuned for more news.

Works of Travel, Sport, Exploration, and the Natural World.

Works of Supernatural, Horror, and the Occult.

Works about the inner and outer life, covering topics such as Lifestyles, Memoirs, and Self-Improvement.

New covers for the current series

I lost my cover designer to a job that won't let him moonlight on the side, so I'm going to need to find a new cover artist, and soon, for my Affinities of Magic series. I'm just starting the audition process.

Sigh…

Puppy

We lost the older of our two dogs last December, and so I failed to resist when the opportunity for a new puppy came along.

I had forgotten just how much work a puppy is. It's like trying to write while baby-sitting a toddler — a toddler with sharp little teeth and a lot of opinions. And the other dog who I counted on to help wants nothing to do with him, although we may finally have talked him into changing his mind.